


strange bedfellows

by syari



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Enemies to Friends, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Sharing a Bed, Smoking, the ultimate platonic bed-sharing fic tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 09:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18568285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syari/pseuds/syari
Summary: Harry, entirely unaware that there had even been flowers to be put in his hair, blinked. “Malfoy wants… to be my friend?”“Well, I assume so,” said Luna, with a laugh that sounded like a rusty can opening yet was still somehow charming. “Otherwise him doing a shot off your belly button would be a rather awkward way to begin your professional negotiations.”





	strange bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

> this is a purely platonic and purely plotless story of harry and co. navigating their twenties from harry’s bed. enjoy :)
> 
> beta’d by the academically excellent [crescentlunae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentlunae/profile)

“Mate,” Ron groaned, “You’ve got to get a bigger bed.”

Face still buried in his pillow, Harry mumbled back. It was meant to be something along the lines of “Feel free to get your own,” but came out as a rather pathetic whine that caused a snort to rise from Harry’s other side.

Harry froze, feeling Ron go still where their sides pressed together. After a moment, a snuffling snore rose up from under the silk headscarf that was all that was visible of the bed’s third occupant, buried under a mound of blankets. Both men breathed a sigh of relief, Harry’s muffled by the pillow and Ron’s by reasonable caution. Hermione was a terror when woken before noon on a weekend.

By mutual unspoken agreement the two men extricated themselves from the blanket pile, moving as fast as possible while maintaining complete silence. Communicating solely by hand signals and insistent eyebrows, Harry followed Ron up through the rich morning sunlight and downstairs to the kitchen. While rolling his neck, Harry used his hands to push himself up back onto the countertop, legs dangling aimlessly. He kicked his heel into the cabinet below in the process and released a very manly meep, quickly suppressed and left unnoticed by his half-asleep friend.

After rifling through the meager contents of the fridge, Ron asked around a mouthful of sloppily-assembled sandwich, “You coming tonight? Nev asked after you last time.”

Harry snorted, rocking forward. “Neville just wants someone even worse at holding their drink around to take the heat off. I thought we decided after the Incident that I was better off leaving early on pub nights.”

They both winced in deeply ingrained shared trauma. This was not, in fact, due to the war, but rather to the other legendary conflict that left them with battered psyches and grim spoils: Friday night pub trivia.

“I know, mate,” Ron grimaced, leaning against the counter next to Harry, “but the Slytherins are trouncing us. We need you there as, er... moral support?”

“Nice,” Harry muttered, knocking shoulders with his best mate. “Real nice. Can’t wait.”

Ron shrugged, face open and entirely too innocent. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll watch out for you, make sure nothing goes wrong this time. You don’t have to drink, even.”

 

—

Ron was a filthy liar.

The pounding of the drums woke Harry far too early, squeezing a pained noise from him that he instantly regretted as he felt the vibrations in his skull, mouth far too dry for the swampy feeling of his stomach.

There were, of course, no drums, and Ginny had no compunctions about telling him so in an unreasonably chipper voice from where she was spread out next to him. She somehow managed to still look put together with Luna’s bottlecap necklace slung jauntily around her neck and a smear of what might have been green paint or worse near the edge of her freckled jaw, and Harry had no hesitation in pushing her off the bed. The loud squawk that followed was well worth it, although it made colors flash madly behind his eyes.

“Why,” Harry ground out, “the _fuck_ did we do drinking games. Why the fuck.”

Ginny shrugged, only a slice of her visible in Harry’s eyeline over the edge of the bed he was plastered to with the weight of his sins. “I thought it would be funny?” She yelped when a tiny plastic pineapple found its way out of Harry’s wild hair and bounced off her forehead with prejudice. “Hey, I was right!”

“I,” Harry said with all the sparse dignity he could muster, “am removing you from the wards. Immediately. Traitors are not welcome in my home.”

Ginny cooed. “Oh, Haz. That’s what you said last time and the time before. Face it, you love me.”

“Less and less every day.” Still, Harry submitted to the bitter tang of defeat. Changing the wards would require movement, and he was fairly sure he was incapable.

“Besides,” Ginny continued gleefully, stretching out with her arms up and back arched, “I haven’t even told you what you got up to last night.”

“What I got up to? Don’t try to shift the blame. You’re the one who got me drunk.” Talking. Too much talking was doing his head in.

“Ye-e-es,” Ginny hand-waved the technicality, “but you’re the one who suggested body shots.”

A flood of horror shot through Harry’s already rioting stomach as he lifted his head off his pillow and away from the suspicious drool stain. “I didn’t.”

Ginny only nodded solemnly, her eyes sparkling madly. Smirking, she opened her mouth only to be hurriedly cut off.

“I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to know.” Harry thunked his head back onto his pillow, flinching a little at the impact. “I’m never drinking again.”

—

“And then?”

Harry blinked, startled out of his reverie. “What?”

A deep, heavy sigh rose up from behind him, and Pansy blew a perfect smoke ring over his shoulder, never one to miss a chance to use the pretentious cigarette holder she thought made her look dashing. “And then what, moron? Did you and Weasley the Youngest have horrifyingly vanilla Gryffindor sex?”

“No! What? No,” Harry spluttered on the alarmingly toxic cloud. “That’s... No. Who said you could smoke inside?”

“Hm,” Pansy ignored his question easily. “I suppose she at least isn’t really the vanilla type, and you were the one to suggest—“

Harry threw up a hand to stop her. “We did not have sex, vanilla or otherwise. Please stop bringing up the body shot thing, I’ve blocked it out.”

“Why, darling,” and Harry could hear the faux surprise dripping off her tongue, “Whoever said anything about body shots? One might think it weighed on you.” She tugged gently at a lock of hair behind his ear. This being Pansy, ‘gently’ left him wincing and rubbing the smarting spot as she slid elegantly off the bed and stubbed out her cigarette on the ashtray she’d Transfigured out of his alarm clock. That would be hellish to replace. He went through at least one a week, and Hermione was getting rather suspicious at this point, having nagged him into recording all his expenses.

“Give Malfoy my love,” Harry said snidely as Pansy bent to retrieve her purse, watching her as she lingered for a moment before rising and casting a spell to smooth down her robes. Pansy loved to be watched, and hated to be touched. Harry, being rather the opposite, had found a certain stability in their chats. He even missed her when she left, some days. Today would not be one of them.

She blew him a kiss over her shoulder on her way to his drawing room and presumably its fireplace where she would certainly use far too much Floo Powder just for the private joy of inconveniencing him. “Tell him yourself, Golden Boy.”

Harry opened his mouth to retort, but she was already gone. He hated the Slytherin penchant for dramatic exits, he really did.

—

Hermione barged into the room without knocking, every line of her screaming efficiency at the cost of normal social rules. “Harry, we need to talk— oh, hello Neville. Stop screaming, it’s just me— we need to talk about the House Elf Rights Bill.”

Having had all the covers yanked off of him in Neville’s attempt to hide his bare chest, Harry had no choice but to stop feigning sleep. Besides, barriers meant nothing to Hermione anymore now that she actually helped make laws and saw the folly of rigidly adhering to a messy, contradictory system. “Hermione, please, you know I love you—”

“Yes, right,” Hermione cut him off while pulling an alarming amount of papers out of her handbag to toss them solidly onto his chest, “That’s nice, but we don’t have time for pleasantries. I need this bill before committee by next week. Where are we with the endorsements?”

Neville, still wrapped protectively in the quilt, stood and began an awkward shuffle toward the door, voice somewhat muffled by the blanket as he muttered, “I’ll just… be going, then.” 

“Hermione, just— Neville, wait—” Harry cringed at the thump of Neville’s covered head at the doorframe. “A bit to the left there— Hermione, I told you I don’t want to use my name to get everything done in government. It’s unethical.” He was quite proud of himself for that argument, having debated various worthy excuses with Neville the night before over wizard’s chess.

Judging by her fearsomely arched eyebrow, Hermione was rather less impressed. “I’m well aware you’re terrible with publicity, which is why I need you to use your name to get other people to use their actual political cachet. I’ve compiled an updated list,” she said brusquely, indicating the stack of papers currently occupying his chest, “And I need you to get started on it. Actually, this really should have been done already, I don’t know what we were thinking, we’ll never make it—“

“Hey, no,” Harry jumped to assure her in a desperate attempt to stave off a full-blown crisis mode melt-down a la the Goblin Liaison Office Crisis of 2001. “It’ll be fine, I’m going to go talk to…” He glanced down at the pile still cradled in his arms and read off the first name, “...Malfoy, right now.”

He paused. “Wait. Malfoy?”

Hermione sniffled, and Harry was decent enough to avert his eyes, meaning he was forced to stare at the rather unfortunately shaped water stain some earlier occupant had left on the flat walls. “Yes, Harry, remember? He’s done all that charity work with that foundation for marginalized wizarding groups and we really need a rising star to back us right now. The Wizengamot’s still stuck in the Dark Ages, and these things take so much time without influence to speed them through, and I hate playing the game as much as you do, but—“

Harry managed to juggle the papers enough to put a hand on Hermione’s shoulder, stopping her to take a deep breath. “It’ll be fine! It’ll be fine. I’ll talk to him.” He managed to suppress a shudder at the thought, but the outlook was still grim. “I doubt he’ll want to see me, though.”

“Hm.” Hermione peered at him through red-rimmed eyes. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Also, did you realize Neville stole your quilt?”

Harry spun on his heel to see his empty bed and let out a long, heartfelt groan. It was going to be a long day.

—

“I mean really, Malfoy? How much of an influence can he have?”

Luna hummed. “You’d be surprised, I think. Draco does have a bit of pull these days. Would you mind handing me that pin? This twist is about to fall out, and I haven’t quite figured out that third hand spell.”

Harry dutifully passed the pin back over his shoulder. “Shame, that sounds useful. What do you think Hermione meant when she said not to be sure Malfoy didn’t want to see me?”

“Yes, I think maybe adapting it from the third eye spell might have been a mistake,” Luna mused, tugging another lock into place and very gently securing it to what Harry assumed to be some sort of braid but was rather afraid to look at to confirm his suspicions. “Very different meanings, metaphysically speaking. I thought it was rather obvious, myself.”

“Then why start from that in the first place?”

Luna tucked an errant curl behind Harry’s ear, seemingly oblivious to the way it sprang out again immediately after. “I meant that Draco just wants to be your friend, Harry. That looks good, doesn’t it? The flowers add a nice bit of color.”

Harry, entirely unaware that there had even been flowers to be put in his hair, blinked. “Malfoy wants… to be my friend?”

“Well, I assume so,” said Luna, with a laugh that sounded like a rusty can opening yet was still somehow charming. “Otherwise him doing a shot off your belly button would be a rather awkward way to begin your professional negotiations.”

Harry groaned, falling back onto Luna’s outstretched legs. “I’m going to kill Ginny.”

—

“I can’t believe you got me drunk, again,” Harry mumbled into his pillow. “You’re the worst.”

An audible sniff came from beside him, and Harry could practically hear the aristocratic disdain. “You’re a lightweight, Potter. Merlin, it’s _freezing_.”

Rolling over, Harry blinked blearily at Malfoy, who was looking rather stiff sitting upright in his dress robes at the edge of the bed. “Neville stole my quilt. Are you going to just sit there all night?”

“I rather thought I would be returning home, actually. You received my endorsement, I was seen with you conversing amiably in a public venue to improve my image. We both got what we wanted, and now we can part ways.” Malfoy’s chin stuck out, reminding Harry of a younger, pointier git posturing for his classmates.

“Come on, Malfoy. I’m too drunk for you to Apparate.” Harry hoped he wasn’t drooling, but his mouth had gone rather numb and it was hard to tell. “Besides, we’re friends now. You have to stay over, that’s the rule.”

Malfoy opened his mouth, pausing for a moment. “That’s not… how anything works. You do know that?”

“Shhhh. Shhh shh shh.” Harry pushed at the other man’s shoulder, helping him sink stiffly into the mattress. “We’re friends. Don’t fight it.”

“I don’t…” Malfoy petered off, hesitant. “Are we?”

Harry nodded, nose scrunching into the pillow. “If you want.” 

A long silence ensued, during which Harry almost drifted into blissful unconsciousness before Malfoy brought him back around with a quiet voice. “I’d… be amenable to that. I suppose.”

Harry snorted. “Good. Shut up and sleep, Malfoy.”

Another silence, and then, “Potter, it’s _freezing_. Your horrible feet are freezing. I will freeze if we stay here. They will find my body and you will be blamed for my untimely death.”

Letting out a soft groan, Harry reached back and poked Malfoy in the too-bony side. “Huddle for warmth, then. I don’t care, just go to sleep and hope I don’t actually kill you for the hangover I’ll have in the morning.”

After a pause, Harry felt a slight warm pressure at his back, and fought down a smirk at the thought of Malfoy having to choose between suffering the chill and spooning his childhood rival.

“Potter.”

“ _What_ , Malfoy?”

“We will never speak of this to anyone, correct?”

Harry shuddered. “Absolutely not. No one can ever know. They would be insufferable.”

Malfoy’s chin poked into Harry’s back as he nodded too quickly. “Thank Merlin for that. I’d lose all self-respect otherwise.”

Harry would have snarked back, but he was too exhausted to work up the energy, letting his weak elbow jab speak for itself.

And if an arm ended up over his waist overnight in an apparent search for warmth, well. Harry couldn’t let Malfoy have the satisfaction of seeing him crack first. They’d see who could keep a secret longest.

Malfoy had no idea what he was in for.

**Author's Note:**

> so this concept came to mind when i was considering how harry and a lot of his friends would have heaps of trauma and nightmares after the war, and it somehow became... this. you’re welcome :)
> 
> come chat on [tumblr](https://podmore.tumblr.com)!


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